Lonely Mountains: Downhill

45.042 €

1.621

Just you and your bike - take it on a thrilling ride down an unspoiled mountain landscape. Make your way through thick forests, narrow trails and wild rivers. Race, jump, slide and try not to crash - all the way from the peak to the valley!

Lonely Mountains: Downhill is planned for release on PC/Mac/Linux mid-2018 if we hit our funding goal.

When we started the development of Lonely Mountains: Downhill two years ago we knew that we wanted to create a different kind of sports game.

Inspired by videos from Danny MacAskill or Kenny Belaey (just to name a few) we went on a journey to create a mountain biking game in which the mountain is your only opponent and nature your only companion.

Set in a world without sponsor signs, barrier tapes or spectators we want you to feel like the first rider to ever challenge this mountain - to explore its wild landscapes and to find your own path down the trail.

Our gameplay vision was to create a fun game - not a replica of real downhill biking. After lots of prototyping we ended up with controls and a camera system that we believe offer a very cool arcade-like racing experience.

We wanted to keep it simple: you can steer, accelerate, brake and sprint. We handle jumping and sliding through our custom bike physicssystem so there are no extra buttons required.

We also strived to make a game that you can simply enjoy as a pastime while still offering serious challenge for speedrunners, competitive players or gamers looking for a tough but fair experience.

Lonely Mountains: Downhill is not an easy game. You will crash and you'll crash a lot - but you can instantly restart at the last checkpoint (which is never too far behind) and due to our rag-doll system crashing is actually quite fun - especially for the people watching you crash.

There is no better way to explain the game than just watching these fine folks play the Gamescom Showcase (Thanks to Motoagogo 13, Starsnipe, and Bonnie Kiwi)

The game will feature numerous mountains - all of them handcrafted. Each consists of several sections connected seamlessly with multiple paths to the next checkpoint.

Our goal is to allow you to play the game the way you want to. You can choose to take a relaxing ride on the scenic route, go off-road to find hidden locations and secrets, or you can go into "full speedrun mode" - trying to make that one nearly impossible jump over the canyon for the all-time record.

There's a special bond between a rider and her or his bike. Not every bike is the best fit for every rider or every mountain. That’s why in the course of the game you will be able to unlock new bikes with different gameplay values, so that you can always choose the best bike for the trail ahead.

We also know that everyone has a personal taste when it comes to cool looking bikes. Therefore each bike will have a large variety of different skins you can find or unlock.

Nature plays a huge role in our game. You'll find no barriers or sponsor signs on the side of the road. No audience cheering you on and no winner's podium waiting for you at the finish line. It's just you and the mountain.

Our goal with the visual as well as the audio design is to make theenvironment in the game come to life. Trees are swaying in the wind, butterflies travel between the flowers and you can discover all kinds of birds and animals as you ride.

Ready to see the world? The base version of the game will feature six different lonely mountains which are inspired by real life mountainscapes and locations all around the globe.

During the game you will unlock new game modes and each will have its own leaderboard. There will be two different time trial modes, a special challenge mode as well as a "One Life"- mode which will only be for the toughest of riders!

If you want to help us localize the game or - even more important at the moment - this Kickstarter page please don't hesitate to contact us at localization@lonelymountains.com. We really appreciate any help we can get!

Overview

Additional Information

Dollar Prices: these have been calculated on the 11th of October 2017 and might change slightly during the campaign based on the exchange rate between Euro and Dollar.

Design A Paint Job: We will send you a template which you can color and then we create a paint job based on your design. Please note we can't put logos or texts on the bike.

Unique Bike and Rider: We'll design a bike and outfit in the game’s style based on images you provide. After release you will receive an in game redeemable code to unlock the bike and outfit. The code can be used as often as you like and you can share it with your friends.

We started Lonely Mountains: Downhill two years ago and now have the game in a state where all the core gameplay features are there. The art, UI and audio direction are also set and most of the tools are tested and ready to use.

We’ve also had nearly a thousand players playtest the game at different events. The feedback has been very good and we're pretty confident that the core gameplay is a lot of fun.

We feel that the game is now at a point where we know what game we want to make and can now ramp up the production to build the actual game content.

We founded Megagon Industries in 2013. Our initial goal was to have a shared company to publish our private pet projects but since then the company has grown into much more than that:

We released two premium mobile games: “... and then it rained” and “Twisted Lines”. The later was nominated for the German game developer awards, the German video game awards as well as selected for several showcases. This encouraged us to spend more and more time working on our games until we decided to work full-time on Lonely Mountains: Downhill.

Hi, I’m Jan. Ever since I was a kid I truly loved riding a bike - whether it was racing down a hill against my friends or riding for a week along the Baltic Sea. Sitting on my bike makes me happy.

My first steps in creating digital stuff reach back almost 25 years ago. Although “coding” back then was more putting together some keywords in QBasic to see what happens.

Later on when level editors became more common I created maps for games like C&C, Doom and Half Life and got fascinated by 3D graphics.

My diploma thesis introduced me to Unity and since then I worked as a freelancing programmer on many different Unity projects. One of them lead me to a company called Die Hobrechts in 2011 where I met Daniel.

Hey! I'm Daniel. I started creating levels for Unreal Tournament when I was 16 and I’ve been making games ever since.

After graduating as a Game Designer in 2008 I worked at Keen Games and remote control productions before I became a freelancer in 2010.

In 2011 I co-founded a game design agency called Die Hobrechts with some friends which became the place I met Jan for the first time. We're working together ever since and founded Megagon Industries together in 2013.

Although Kickstarter comes with a lot of risks it feels like the right step for us - for more than one reason:

Early access: We got asked a lot if there's some way to play the game before its official release. We think a Kickstarter campaign with different early access tiers is the best way to offer that.

Developing the game together: We hope that a Kickstarter campaign can be the start of a community who helps us shape and improve the game.

Creative independence: It’s important for us to stay creatively independent and make decisions we think are best for the game.

We need the money: We were fortunate enough to receive state funding by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. However, this funding will only cover half of the development costs as we need to provide the other half. If we are able to reach our initial funding goal we can make the base version of the game together with you and Medienboard.

So what’s happening with the Kickstarter money?

After taxes, Kickstarter & payment processing fees 71% of the Kickstarter money will be used to pay for the development of the game together with the Medienboard funding.

Development costs include Jan’s and Daniel’s salaries as well as salaries for freelancers helping with sound design and additional 3D assets and animations.

We also have to pay office rent, accounting, software licenses and all the other stuff necessary to run a game development studio - even when it’s as small as ours.

We know Kickstarter will be a tough ride. We saw a lot of very good projects who didn’t or just barely succeeded. We both thought long and hard about the risks of doing this but seeing all the amazing feedback over the last few months we decided to try it anyway. We believe that together with you we can climb that mountain!

Risiken und Herausforderungen

We’re probably not alone with saying that making games is nearly always a risky endeavour. We’ve never worked on a game which didn’t hit some unexpected problems somewhere down the road and Lonely Mountains: Downhill will probably not be the exception. With that said we already have a fun and playable core game so we’re hopeful we can tackle most of what the game development gods might throw at us.

In addition there are only two of us at the moment, and for such a small team certain risks are bound to be present. If one of us gets ill or has to take time out for their personal life, it is extremely likely to affect the development roadmap.

Lastly- one of the reasons we decided to go with a Kickstarter rather than working with a publisher is the freedom to keep experimenting and prototyping. If we have to choose between a new great idea for the game or an earlier release, going for the idea will probably win most of the times.

As for the Kickstarter rewards fulfillment: because we decided to only have very few physical rewards we’re confident that all backers will get their rewards once they become available.

Kickstarter ist kein Geschäft.

Mindestbeitrag: 750 €
Ungefähr 840 US$

ADOPT AN ANIMAL

+ LIMITED: Tell us your FAVORITE ANIMAL and we will put a little family of it in the game - must be a real animal, no dragons (or yetis) allowed and must thematically fit to one of our mountains (Decision must be made till end of January 2018 otherwise it will be given to the community)